The emergence of new bandwidth-intensive applications articulated by distance learning, online gaming, Web 2.0 and movie delivery by means of high-definition video, has ultimately justified the necessity of upgrading the access network infrastructure to provide fat-bandwidth pipelines at subscriber close proximity. Passive optical networks (PONs) are an emerging technology to deliver these services. This thesis presents innovative work performed towards the application of coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) to route communications to and from reflective optical network units (ONUs) incorporated in time and wavelength division multiplexed PONs. The concept of coarse and dense WDM grid integration and its adaptation in access networks to map, for the first time, selective closely-spaced wavelengths into coarse passband windows of Gaussian and flat-top arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs), exhibiting coarse-fine grooming, is initially developed. This is followed by the identification of a new network architecture combining multiple PONs, using a coarse AWG to form a next-generation access network. A significant feature of this approach allows for time division multiplexing (TDM) and WDM PON technologies to be integrated through the 7 nm coarse passband windows of a single AWG, providing for interoperability and high scalability. The network performance through simulation, in the presence of polarisation-dependent wavelength shift and associated polarisation-dependent loss, shows the capability of a single optical line terminal (OLT) to access various physical PONs in 25 km proximity with multiple wavelengths through a single AWG router. This approach enables centralised bandwidth allocation and a smooth migration path between time-shared and densely-penetrated access networks. Furthermore, to demonstrate full-duplex operation, allowing for increased bandwidth utilisation of the reflective access network architecture, full-duplex functionality is achieved by using polarisation division multiplexing. This is implemented in the OLT by assigning each ONU downstream data and continues waves on orthogonal states of polarisation. Hence, by assuming the use of symmetrical broadband services, the novel multi-PON access network verifies its potential to double the bandwidth utilisation for each subscriber, allowing for increased bidirectional network throughput. In addition, an experimental test-bed is performed which demonstrates the core operation of the network being, by means of a readily-available 2.7 nm-wide AWG router. Hence, the practical feasibility of the new access network concept is demonstrated.

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Recently there is an emergence of many Internet applications such as multimedia, video conferencing, distributed interactive simulations (DIS), and high-performance scientific computations like Grid computing. These applications require huge amount of bandwidth and a viable communication paradigm to coordinate with multiple sources and destinations. Optical networks are the potential candidates for providing high bandwidth requirement. Existing communication paradigms include broadcast, and multicast. Hence supporting these paradigms over optical networks is necessary. Multicasting over optical networks has been well investigated in the literature. QoS policies implemented in IP does not apply for Wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) or optical burst switched (OBS) networks, as the optical counterpart for store-and-forward model does not exist. Hence there is a need to provision QoS over optical networks. These QoS requirements can include contention, optical signal quality, reliability and delay. To support these diverse requirements, optical networks must be able to manage the available resources effectively. Destinations participating in the multicast session are fixed (or rather static). Due to the random contention in the network, if at least one or more destination(s) is not reachable, requested multicast session cannot be established. This results in loss of multicast request with high probability of blocking. Incorporating wavelength converters (WCs) at the core nodes can decrease the contention loss, however WCs require optical-electrical-optical (O/E/O) conversion. This increases the delay incurred by optical signal. On the other hand all-optical WCs are expensive and increase the cost of the network if deployed. Goal of this thesis is, to provide hop-to-hop QoS on an existing all-optical network (AON) with no WC and optical regeneration capability. In order to minimize the request vi Abstract vii lost due to contention in AON, we propose a variation of multicasting called Quorumcasting or Manycasting. In Quorumcasting destinations can join (or leave) to (or from) the group depending on whether they are reachable or not. In other words destinations have to be determined rather than knowing them prior, as in the case of multicasting. Quorum pool is minimum number of destinations that are required to be participated in the session for successful accomplishment of the job (k be the size of quorum pool). Providing QoS for manycasting over OBS has not been addressed in the literature. Given the multicast group (with cardinality m > k) and the number of destinations required to be participated, the contribution of this work is based on providing necessary QoS. In this thesis we study the behavior of manycasting over OBS networks. In OBS networks, packets from the upper-layer (such as IP, ATM, STM) are assembled and a burst is created at the edge router. By using O/E/O conversion at the edge nodes, these optical bursts are scheduled to the core node. Control header packet or burst header packet (BHP) is sent to prior to the transmission of burst. The BHP configures the core nodes and the burst is scheduled on the channel after certain offset time. In the first part of the thesis, we explain the different distributed applications with primary focus on Grid over OBS (GoOBS). We study the loss scenario due contention and inadequate signal quality for an unicast case in OBS network. We further extend this to manycasting. We modify the BHP header fields to make the burst aware of not only contention on the next-hop link, but also bit-error rate (BER). By using recursive signal and noise power relations, we calculate the BER (or q-factor) of the link and schedule the burst only if the required BER threshold is met. Thus all the bursts that reach the next-hop node ensure that contention and BER constraint are met. This are called “Impairment-Aware (IA) Scheduling”. Burst loss in the network increases due to BER constraint. Hence we propose algorithms to decrease the burst loss and simultaneously providing the sufficient optical signal quality. We propose three algorithms called IA-shortest path tree (IA-SPT), IA-static over provisioning (IA-SOP), and IA-dynamic membership (IA-DM). In IA-SPT destination set is sorted in the non-decreasing order of the hop-distance from source. First k of them are selected and bursts are scheduled to Abstract viii these destinations along the shortest path. In IA-SOP we select additional k0(_ m − k) destinations where k0 is the over provisioning factor. Over provisioning ensures that burst at least reach k of them, decreasing the contention blocking. However as the burst has to span more destinations, the fan-out of the multicast capable switch will be more and the BER could be high. In IA-DM destinations are dynamically added or removed, depending on contention and BER. Destination is removed and new destination is added based on the two constraints. Our simulation results shows that IA-DM out performs the other two algorithms in terms of request blocking. We show that IP-based many casting has poor performance and hence there is a need for supporting many casting over OBS networks. We verify our simulation results with the proposed analytical method. In the next part, we focus on provisioning QoS in many casting. QoS parameters considered for analysis include, signal quality i.e., optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR), reliability of the link and, propagation delay. In this work we consider application based QoS provisioning. In other words, given the threshold requirements of an application, our aim is to successfully schedule the burst to the quorum pool satisfying the threshold conditions. We use a de-centralized way of the scheduling the burst, using BHP. With the help of local-network state information, the burst is scheduled only if it satisfies multiple set of constraints. Corresponding reception of burst at the node ensures that all the QoS constraints are met and burst is forwarded to the next hop. QoS attributes are either multiplicative or additive. Noise factor of the optical signal and reliability factor are multiplicative constraints, where as propagation delay is additive. We define a path information vector, which provides the QoS information of the burst at every node. Using lattice theory we define an ordering, such that noise factor and propagation delay are minimum and reliability is maximum. Using path algebra we compute the overall QoS attributes. Due to multiple set of constraints, the request blocking could be high. We propose algorithms to minimize request blocking for Multiple Constrained Many cast Problem (MCMP). We propose two algorithms MCM-SPT and MCM-DM. We consider different set of service thresholds, such as real time and data service thresholds. Real time services impose restriction on signal quality and the propagation delay. On the other hand Abstract ix data services require high reliability and signal quality. Our simulation study shows that MCM-SPT performs better than MCM-DM for real-time services and the data services can be provisioned using MCM-DM.

Optical WDM network is the suitable transport mechanism for ever increasing bandwidth intensive internet applications. The WDM technique transmits the data over several different wavelengths simultaneously through an opticalfiber and the switching is done at wavelength level. The connection between the source and destination is called the light path. Since the WDM network carries huge amount of tra c, any failure can cause massive data loss. Therefore protecting the network against failure is an important issue. Maintaining high level of service availability is an important aspect of service provider. To provide cost effective service, all-optical network is the suitable choice for the service provider. But in all optical network, the signals are forced to remain in optical domain from source to destination. In the firrst part of the thesis, we deal the physical layer impairments (PLIs) aware shared-path provisioning on a wavelength routed all-optical networks. As the signal travels longer distances, the quality of the signal gets degraded and the receiver may not be able to detect the optical signal properly. Our objective is to establish a light path for both the working path and protection path with acceptable signal quality at the receiver. We propose an impairment aware integer linear programming (ILP) and impairment aware heuristic algorithm that takes into account the PLIs. The ILP provides the optimal solution. It is solved using IBM ILOG CPLEX solver. It is intractable for large size net-work. Therefore we propose the heuristic algorithm for large size network. It is evaluated through discrete-event simulation. But the algorithm provides only the suboptimal solution. To know the performance of this algorithm, the simulation result is compared with the optimal solution. We compute total blocking probability, restoration delay, computation time, and connection setup delay with respect to network load for the heuristic algorithm. We compare the performance of shared-path protection with dedicated-path protection and evaluate the percentage of resource saving of shared-path protection over the dedicated-path protection. In the second and third part of the thesis, we address the issues related to flexible-grid optical networks. In wavelength routed optical network, the bandwidth of each wavelength is fixed and rigid. It supports coarse grained tra c grooming and leads to ancient spectrum utilization. To overcome this, flexible-grid optical networks are proposed. It supports flexible bandwidth, and ne grained tra c groom In the second part of the thesis, we address the routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) algorithm for variable-bit-rate data tra c for flexible-grid optical networks. The RSA problem is NP-complete. Therefore a two-step heuristic approach (routing and spectrum allocation) is proposed to solve the RSA problem. The first step is solved by using a classical shortest path algorithm. For the second step we propose two heuristic schemes for frequency-slot allocation: (i) largest number of free frequency-slot allocation scheme and (ii) largest number of free frequency-slot maintaining scheme. As the network load increases, the spectrum is highly fragmented. To mitigate the fragmentation of the spectrum, we propose a xed-path least-fragmentation heuristic algorithm which fragments the spectrum minimally. It also supports varying-bit-rate tra c and also supports dynamic arrival connection requests. Through extensive simulations the proposed algorithms have been evaluated. Our simulation results show that the algorithms perform better in terms of spectrum utilization, blocking probability, and fraction of fragmentation of the spectrum. The spectrum utilization can reach up to a maximum of 92% and that only 71% of the spectrum is fragmented under maximum network load condition. Finally in the third part of the thesis, we discuss PLIs-aware RSA for the transparent exible-grid optical network. In this network, not only the optical signal expected to travel longer distance, but also to support higher line rates, i.e., data rate is increased up to 1 Tb/s. In such a high data rate, the optical signals are more prone to impairments and noises. As the transmission distance increases, optical signals are subject to tra-verse over many bandwidth-variable wavelength cross connects (BV-WXC) and multiple fibber spans due to which the PLIs get accumulated and are added to the optical signal. These accumulated impairments degrades the signal quality to an unacceptable level at the receiver, the quality of transmission falls below the acceptable threshold value, and the receiver may not be able to detect the signal properly. Therefore our objective is to develop an impairment aware RSA algorithm which establishes the QoT satisfied empathy based on the available resources and the quality of the signal available at the receiver. We formulate the PLIs-RSA problem as an ILP that provides an optimal solution. The optimal solution is obtained by solving the ILP using IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization solver. Since ILP is not efficient for large-size networks, we propose a heuristic algorithm for such a large-size networks. The signal power is measured at the receiver and the connection is established only when the signal power lies above the threshold value. The heuristic algorithm is evaluated through discrete-event simulation. It gives the sub-optimal solution. The simulation result is compared with optimal solution. The result shows that heuristic algorithm performs closer to the ILP. We compute the total blocking probability versus the network load for different spectrum allocation schemes. Total blocking probability is the sum of frequency-slot blocking probability and QoT blocking probability. We compute spectrum efficiency for the proposed algorithm. We also compare our algorithm with the existing routing and spectrum allocation algorithm, and the result shows that our algorithm outperforms the existing algorithms in terms of blocking probability and spectrum utilization.

Τα οπτικά δίκτυα αποτελούν την αποδοτικότερη επιλογή όσον αφορά την εγκατάσταση ευρυζωνικών δικτύων κορμού, καθώς παρουσιάζουν μοναδικά χαρακτηριστικά μετάδοσης. Διαθέτουν τεράστιο εύρος ζώνης, υψηλή αξιοπιστία, ενώ επίσης έχουν μειωμένο κόστος μετάδοσης ανά bit πληροφορίας σε σχέση με τα υπόλοιπα ενσύρματα δίκτυα. Σημαντικές ερευνητικές προσπάθειες έχουν επικεντρωθεί στις προοπτικές μετάβασης από τα παραδοσιακά στατικά δίκτυα κυκλωμάτων, στα οποία χρησιμοποιείται από-σημείο-σε-σημείο οπτική μετάδοση, σε δίκτυα μετάδοσης δεδομένων που προσφέρουν δυναμική και γρήγορη επαναρύθμιση των οπτικών μονοπατιών και πρόσβαση σε χωρητικότητες κάτω του ενός μήκους κύματος, ανάλογα με τις απαιτήσεις των χρηστών και των εκάστοτε εφαρμογών. Τα τελευταία χρόνια υπάρχει η τάση για δημιουργία δυναμικών και επαναρυθμιζόμενων οπτικών δικτύων μεταγωγής κυκλώματος (Optical Circuit Switching), τα οποία θα βασίζονται σε διαφανείς κόμβους μεταγωγής. Η μονάδα μεταγωγής των δικτύων οπτικής μεταγωγής κυκλώματος είναι τα οπτικά μονοπάτια (lightpaths) και το βασικό πρόβλημα βελτιστοποίησης που σχετίζεται με την αποδοτική εκμετάλλευση της χωρητικότητας τέτοιων δικτύων είναι το πρόβλημα της δρομολόγησης και ανάθεσης μήκους κύματος (Routing and Wavelength Assignment - RWA). Στα αμιγώς διαφανή (transparent) οπτικά δίκτυα κυκλώματος η μετάδοση του σήματος υποβαθμίζεται από μια σειρά φυσικών εξασθενήσεων (physical impairments), σε σημείο που η εγκατάσταση ενός οπτικού μονοπατιού να μην είναι αποδεκτή. Για την αντιμετώπιση αυτού του προβλήματος στην παρούσα διατριβή προτείνουμε αλγόριθμους οι οποίοι λαμβάνουν υπόψη τους τις φυσικές εξασθενήσεις (Impairment Aware RWA ή ΙΑ-RWA algorithms) τόσο για στατική όσο και για δυναμική κίνηση. Συγκεκριμένα, παρουσιάζουμε έναν IA-RWA αλγόριθμο για στατική κίνηση, ο οποίος βασίζεται στην τεχνική της LP-χαλάρωσης και χρησιμοποιεί αποδοτικές μεθόδους για την παραγωγή ακεραίων λύσεων. Εκφράζουμε τις φυσικές εξασθενήσεις μέσω επιπλέον περιορισμών στην LP μοντελοποίηση του RWA προβλήματος, επιτυγχάνοντας την διαστρωματική βελτιστοποίηση (cross-layer optimization) πάνω στο φυσικό επίπεδο και στο επίπεδο δικτύου. Στη συνέχεια, προτείνουμε έναν IA-RWA αλγόριθμο πολλαπλών κριτηρίων (multi-cost) για δυναμική κίνηση. Ορίζουμε ένα διάνυσμα από κόστη για κάθε σύνδεσμο και τις πράξεις συσχέτισης αυτών, ώστε να μπορούμε να υπολογίσουμε το διάνυσμα από κόστη ενός μονοπατιού και μέσω αυτού να αξιολογήσουμε την ποιότητα μετάδοσης των διαθέσιμων μηκών κύματος του μονοπατιού. Για την εξυπηρέτηση μιας νέας αίτησης σύνδεσης, ο αλγόριθμος πολλαπλών κριτηρίων υπολογίζει το σύνολο των μη κυριαρχούμενων μονοπατιών, από την πηγή στο ζητούμενο προορισμό, και μετά εφαρμόζει μια πολιτική για να επιλέξει το βέλτιστο οπτικό μονοπάτι. Προτείνουμε και αξιολογούμε την απόδοση μιας σειράς από πολιτικές επιλογής, η κάθε μια από τις οποίες ουσιαστικά αντιστοιχεί σε έναν διαφορετικό δυναμικό IA-RWA αλγόριθμο. Στη συνέχεια, στρέφουμε την προσοχή μας στα δίκτυα οπτικής μεταγωγής καταιγισμών (Optical Burst Switching – OBS), τα οποία θεωρούνται ότι αποτελούν το επόμενο στάδιο των δικτύων οπτικής μεταγωγής κυκλώματος, όπου η δέσμευση της χωρητικότητας γίνεται για μικρότερο χρονικό διάστημα. Στα OBS δίκτυα, τα πακέτα που έχουν τον ίδιο προορισμό και παρόμοιες απαιτήσεις ποιότητας υπηρεσίας συναθροίζονται σε καταιγισμούς (bursts). Οι καταιγισμοί μεταδίδονται πάνω από αμιγώς οπτικά μονοπάτια, τα οποία ρυθμίζονται με τη χρήση πακέτων ελέγχου που μεταδίδονται πριν από τους αντίστοιχους καταιγισμούς και τα οποία επεξεργάζονται ηλεκτρονικά οι ενδιάμεσοι κόμβοι. Επικεντρώνουμε την προσοχή μας σε δυο βασικά στοιχεία ενός δικτύου οπτικής μεταγωγής καταιγισμών, την διαδικασία συναρμολόγησης καταιγισμών και τα πρωτόκολλα σηματοδοσίας, και παραθέτουμε δύο προτάσεις για την αποδοτική ανάθεσης χωρητικότητας σε αυτά τα δίκτυα. Συγκεκριμένα, προτείνουμε και αξιολογούμε ένα νέο αλγόριθμο συναρμολόγησης καταιγισμών που βασίζεται στη μέση καθυστέρηση των πακέτων που αποτελούν έναν καταιγισμό. Δείχνουμε ότι ο προτεινόμενος αλγόριθμος συναρμολόγησης καταιγισμών μειώνει την διασπορά της καθυστέρησης των πακέτων (packet delay jitter), η οποία είναι σημαντική για μια σειρά από εφαρμογές. Στην συνέχεια προτείνουμε ένα νέο αμφίδρομο (two-way) πρωτόκολλο σηματοδοσίας που βασίζεται στις μελλοντικές (in-advance) και χαλαρωμένες χρονικά (relaxed timed) δεσμεύσεις χωρητικότητας. Στο προτεινόμενο πρωτόκολλο, κατά τη φάση εγκατάστασης της σύνδεσης οι δεσμεύσεις χωρητικότητας γίνονται για χρονικό διάστημα μεγαλύτερο από το χρόνο μετάδοσης του καταιγισμού, ώστε να αυξηθεί η πιθανότητα επιτυχούς εγκατάστασης στους επόμενους συνδέσμους του μονοπατιού. Συγκρίνουμε το προτεινόμενο πρωτόκολλο με τυπικά πρωτόκολλα που έχουν προταθεί στη βιβλιογραφία και δείχνουμε οτι μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί για την παροχή διαφοροποιημένης ποιότητα υπηρεσιών (QoS differentiation) στους χρήστες του OBS δικτύου. Στη συνέχεια, εξετάζουμε το πρόβλημα της δρομολόγησης και του χρονοπρογραμματισμού συνδέσεων με χαλαρό - μη συγκεκριμένο χρόνο εκκίνησης, πρόβλημα που εμφανίζεται υπό ελαφρώς διαφορετική μορφή σε δίκτυα οπτικής μεταγωγής κυκλώματος, οπτικής μεταγωγής καταιγισμών αλλά και μεταγωγής πακέτου. Η εξυπηρέτηση αυτών των συνδέσεων γίνεται μέσω μελλοντικών δεσμεύσεων χωρητικότητας, τρόπος ο οποίος είναι τυπικός για να παρεχθεί εγγυημένη ποιότητα υπηρεσίας (QoS) στους χρήστες ενός δικτύου. Θεωρούμε ότι μας δίνεται μια σύνδεση με γνωστή πηγή και προορισμό, γνωστό ή άγνωστο όγκο δεδομένων και γνωστό ρυθμό μετάδοσης και ζητείται να αποφασίσουμε το μονοπάτι που θα ακολουθήσουν τα δεδομένα και το χρόνο που θα αρχίσει η μετάδοση. Διακριτοποιούμε το χρόνο και χρησιμοποιούμε κατάλληλα διανύσματα ως δομές δεδομένων για να αναπαραστήσουμε τη διαθεσιμότητα των συνδέσμων του δικτύου ως συνάρτηση του χρόνου. Χρησιμοποιούμε αυτά τα διανύσματα σε ένα αλγόριθμο πολλαπλών κριτηρίων για τη δρομολόγηση και το χρονοπρογραμματισμό των συνδέσεων. Αρχικά, παρουσιάζουμε έναν αλγόριθμο πολλαπλών κριτηρίων μη πολυωνυμικής πολυπλοκότητας, ο οποίος βασίζεται στην έννοια των μη-κυριαρχούμενων μονοπατιών. Μετά προτείνουμε δύο ευριστικούς αλγορίθμους πολυωνυμικής πολυπλοκότητας, ορίζοντας κατάλληλες σχέσεις ψευδο-κυριαρχίας οι οποίες μειώνουν το χώρο των λύσεων. Επίσης, προτείνουμε ένα μηχανισμό branch-and-bound, ο οποίος μπορεί να μειώσει το χώρο λύσεων στην περίπτωση που χρησιμοποιούμε μια συγκεκριμένη συνάρτηση βελτιστοποίησης για όλες τις συνδέσεις. Η απόδοση των προτεινόμενων αλγορίθμων αξιολογήθηκε σε ένα δίκτυο οπτικής μεταγωγής καταιγισμών, ωστόσο τα συμπεράσματα και η εφαρμοσιμότητα του προτεινόμενου αλγόριθμου επεκτείνεται και σε άλλου είδους οπτικά δίκτυα. Τέλος, εξετάζουμε το πρόβλημα του συνδυασμένου χρονοπρογραμματισμού των δικτυακών και υπολογιστικών πόρων που απαιτούνται για την εκτέλεση μιας διεργασίας σε ένα Δίκτυο Πλέγματος (Grid Network). Τα Δίκτυα Πλέγματος θεωρούνται το επόμενο βήμα στον τομέα των κατανεμημένων συστημάτων, εισάγοντας την έννοια της “κοινής” χρήσης γεωγραφικά κατανεμημένων και ετερογενών πόρων (υπολογιστικών, αποθηκευτικών, δικτυακών, κλπ.). Υποθέτουμε ότι η εκτέλεση μιας διεργασίας αποτελείται από δύο διαδοχικά στάδια: (α) Τη μεταφορά των δεδομένων εισόδου της διεργασίας από μια αποθηκευτική μονάδα σε μια συστοιχία υπολογιστών (cluster), (β) την εκτέλεση της διεργασίας στη συστοιχία υπολογιστών. Επεκτείνουμε τον αλγόριθμο πολλαπλών κριτηρίων για τη δρομολόγηση και το χρονοπρογραμματισμό συνδέσεων που περιγράφηκε προηγουμένως, έτσι ώστε να χειρίζεται με ένα συνδυασμένο τρόπο δικτυακούς και υπολογιστικούς πόρους για την εκτέλεση των διεργασιών. Ο προτεινόμενος αλγόριθμος επιστρέφει: (i) τη συστοιχία υπολογιστών όπου θα εκτελεστεί η διεργασία, (ii) το μονοπάτι το οποίο θα ακολουθήσουν τα δεδομένα εισόδου, (iii) τη χρονική στιγμή εκκίνησης μετάδοσης και (iv) τη χρονική στιγμή εκκίνησης εκτέλεσης της διεργασίας στη συστοιχία υπολογιστών. Ξεκινάμε παρουσιάζοντας έναν αλγόριθμο μη πολυωνυμικού χρόνου και μετά, αφού μειώσουμε κατάλληλα το χώρο λύσεων, δίνουμε έναν ευριστικό αλγόριθμο πολυωνυμικής πολυπλοκότητας. / Optical networks have developed rapidly over the last ten years and are widely used in core networks due to their superior transmission characteristics. Optical networks provide huge available capacity that can be efficiently utilized using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and high reliability at the lowest cost per bit ratio when compared to the other wired and wireless networking solutions. Much research has focused on ways to evolve from the typical point-to-point opaque WDM networks that are currently employed in the core to optical networks that are dynamically and quickly reconfigurable and can provide on-demand services to users at subwavelength granularity according to users’ requirements. The most common architecture utilized for establishing communication in WDM optical networks is wavelength routing that fall in the general category of Optical Circuit Switched (OCS) networks. The switched entities in OCS networks are the lightpaths and the basic optimization problem that is related to the efficient allocation of bandwidth is the routing and wavelength assignment problem (RWA). The current optical technology employed in core networks is point-to-point transmission, where the signal is regenerated at every intermediate node via optical-electronic-optical (OEO) conversion. During the recent few years, the trend clearly shows an evolution towards low-cost and high capacity all-optical transparent networks that do not utilize OEO. In transparent OCS networks the signal of a lightpath remains in the optical domain and its quality deteriorates due to a series of physical layer impairments (PLIs). These PLIs may degrade the received signal quality to the extent that the bit-error rate (BER) at the receiver may be so high that signal detection may be infeasible for some lightpaths. To address this problem we proposed algorithms that take into account the PLIs, usually referred in the literature as Impairment Aware RWA or ΙΑ-RWA algorithms, for both offline (static) and online (dynamic) traffic. In particular we propose an IA-RWA algorithm for static traffic that is based on an LP-relaxation formulation and use various efficient methods to obtain integer solutions. The physical layer impairments are included as additional constraint in the LP formulation of the RWA problem, yielding a cross-layer optimization solution between the network and the physical layers. We then proceed and propose a multi-cost IA-RWA algorithm for dynamic traffic. We define a cost vector per link and associative operators to combine these vectors so as to calculate the cost vector of a path. The parameters of these cost vectors are chosen so as to enable the quick and efficient calculation of the quality of transmission of candidate lightpaths. To serve a connection request, the proposed multi-cost algorithm calculates the set of so called non-dominated paths from the given source to the given destination, and then applies an optimization policy to choose the optimal lightpath. We propose and evaluate various optimization policies that correspond to different online IA-RWA algorithms. We then turn our attention to Optical Burst Switched (OBS) networks, which are regarded as the next step from the OCS paradigm towards a more dynamic core network that can provide on demand subwavelength services to users. In OBS networks, the packets that have the same destination and similar quality of service requirements are aggregated into bursts at the ingress nodes. When a burst is aggregated, a control packet is transmitted and is electronically processed at intermediate nodes so as to configure them for the burst that will pass transparently afterwards. We focus on two key elements of an OBS network, and in particular the burst aggregation (or burstification) process and the signaling protocol, and we propose two solutions for the efficient allocation of bandwidth in OBS networks. We propose and evaluate a novel burst assembly algorithm that is based on the average delay of the packets that comprise a burst. We show that the proposed algorithm decreases the packet delay jitter among the packets, which is important for a number of applications, including real-time, video and audio streaming, and TCP applications. Next we propose a two-way reservation signaling protocol that utilizes in-advance and relaxed timed reservation of the bandwidth. In the connection establishment phase of the proposed protocol, bandwidth reservations can exceed the duration of burst transmission (thus, relaxing the timed reservations), so as to increase the acceptance probability for the rest of the path. By controlling the degree of the relaxed timed reservations the protocol can also provide service differentiation to the users. Next we examine the problem of routing and scheduling of connections with flexible starting time in networks that support advance reservations. This problem can arise in slightly different settings in Optical Circuit Switched, Optical Burst Switched, and Optical Packet Switched networks. Such connection requests are served through advanced reservations, a process which is used to provide quality of service to users. We assume that for a connection request we are given the source, the destination, and the size of the data to be transferred with a given rate, and we are asked to provide the path and the time that the transmission should start so as to optimize a certain performance metric. We discretize the time and we use appropriate data structures (in the form of vectors) to map the utilization of the links as a function of time. We use these vectors as cost parameters in a multi-cost algorithm. We initially present a multicost algorithm of non-polynomial complexity that uses a full domination relation between paths. We then propose two mechanisms to prune the solution space in order to obtain polynomial complexity algorithms. In the first mechanism we define pseudo-domination relations that are weaker than the full domination relation. We also propose a branch-and-bound extension to the optimum algorithm that can be used for a given specific optimization function. The performance of the multicost algorithm and its variations are evaluated in an OBS network, but this does not limit the applicability of the algorithm and the conclusions can be extended in the other optical networking paradigms. Finally, we examine the problem of joint reservation of communication and computation resources that are required by a task in a Grid Network. Grid Networks are considered as the next step in distributed systems, introducing the concept of shared usage of geographically distributed and heterogeneous resources (computation, storage, communication, etc.). We assume that the task execution consists of two phases: (a) the transfer of the input data from a data storage resource, or the scheduler to a computation resource (cluster), (b) the execution of a program at the cluster. We extend the multicost algorithm for the routing and scheduling of connections, outlined above, so as to handle the reservation of computation resources as its last leg. In this way the proposed algorithm performs a joint optimization for the communication and computation part required by a task and returns: (i) the cluster to the execute the task, (ii) the path to route the input data, (iii) the time to start the transmission of data, and (iv) the time to start the execution of the task. We start by presenting an algorithm of non-polynomial complexity and then by appropriately pruning the solution space, we give a heuristic algorithm of polynomial complexity. We show that in a Grid network where the tasks are cpu- and data-intensive important performance benefits can be obtained by jointly optimizing the use of the communication and computation resources.